News

Wins and losses for ORICA-SCOTT on stage 12 of the Giro d’Italia

Thu 18 May 2017

ORICA-SCOTT finished stage 12 of the Giro d’Italia with mixed fortunes after a bunch finish into Reggio Emilia today.

22-year-old sprinter Caleb Ewan once again suffered a mishap in the final kilometre, colliding with another rider and bending his brake pad into his front wheel to take him out of the final sprint won by Fernando Gaviria (Quickstep).

In a more positive result for the day, British climber Adam Yates continued to show his sharp form, finishing 17th in the sprint, ahead of a split, to take six-seconds on his general classification rivals.

“Everything was going well, and Caleb was looking strong, until the final kilometre,” sport director Matt White said. “The boys had contributed to controlling the break all day and put in some fantastic work in the closing kilometres in support of the sprint.”

“Unfortunately Caleb has hit another rider and has bent his brake pad. When the mechanics received the bike after the race, the wheel wouldn’t spin a full rotation. Unfortunately it’s impossible to compete in the sprint with that type of issue.”

“But, we have once again seen that Adam is in good form and is positioning himself particularly well in the finals.

“It’s easy for races to split in this scenario and it’s great to see Adam on the right side of that. We’ll take six seconds any day – bit-by-bit we are chipping away. Our goals haven’t changed.”

How it happened:

After a difficult mountain stage yesterday, the sprinters were hoping stage 12 offered them another opportunity to glory today. Standing in their way were two classified climbs.

Thankfully, three riders broke away with relative ease early on and allowed a steady pace in the bunch to keep the sprinters in touch over the ascents.

The trio in front held a maximum advantage of seven-minutes 30seconds, but the sprint teams, including ORICA-SCOTT, Quickstep, Lotto-Soudal and Bora-Hansgrohe, had them within three-minutes as they entered the final 40km.

With perfectly measured timing, the race was back together with seven kilometres remaining, just in time to wind up for a bunch kick.

Ewan hit trouble in the final kilometre after the hard work of his teammates as Gaviria took the win ahead. Yates once again showed his speed to finish in the front split of 19 riders, making up the six-seconds on his rivals as Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) held onto the leader’s jersey.